We Alone Won War, Soviets Say

April 22, 1985|By Howard A. Tyner, Chicago Tribune.

MOSCOW — A Soviet poster depicting two smiling World War II soldiers with their arms around each other underscores the deep differences between East and West this spring as the 40th anniversary of the war`s end approaches.

One soldier on the poster is an American, the other a Red Army trooper. When the photograph was taken, their units had just joined forces at the Elbe River in the defeated Nazi Germany of 1945.

The words beneath the picture read, ``We remember those who fought and who embraced us on the Elbe.`` What disturbs Western diplomats here has been the remarkable absence of that sentiment throughout the months-long Soviet propaganda campaign before next month`s anniversary celebrations.

In thousands of newspaper and magazine articles, books, memoirs, records, films and television programs that have appeared in the last year, the theme has been the same:

The Soviet Union alone won the European war, and also the battle against Japan, though it didn`t declare war on that nation until a week before Japan surrendered.

Foreigners say they have yet to see the ``We remember`` poster in public. It was sold briefly last month in several Moscow shops but now is all but impossible to find.

The occasional token acknowledgments of a Western role in the war that do appear are played down. Instead, the West is accused regularly of trying to belittle the Soviet war effort and distort history.

Diplomats from nations that belonged to the antifascist wartime alliance say their countries have not been asked to take part next month in formal ceremonies being organized here, among them a Red Square military parade. Most express relief.

``If we were asked, I would have to recommend against it,`` a Western ambassador said. ``Wouldn`t it eventually prove embarrassing enough that I would have to walk out of something?``

The ``Great Patriotic War,`` as it is known here, is a far more emotional subject in the Soviet Union than among its former allies. Part of the reason lies in the fact that 20 million Soviet citizens died because of the conflict, which means almost every family was affected.

The horrible memories aside, many older Soviets also look to the 1941-45 period with deep nostalgia. For them it was a time of camaraderie and unity of national purpose never achieved in the postwar era despite a constant blitz of exhortation and encouragement from the leadership.

Even more important, the war represented a moment when the Soviet Union, which had been considered something of an international pariah for more than a decade after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, finally was accepted as a legitimate big power with a genuine voice in world affairs.

Now, the propaganda line goes, President Reagan is trying to achieve military superiority to deny the Kremlin the status that was earned during the war.

Western diplomats here are irritated by that approach to the anniversary. The message of official pronouncements, a diplomat said, ``is that not only did Moscow save the world 40 years ago from Nazism but now is saving the world from the clutches of United States militarism.``

Perhaps it isn`t surprising that the lone American ``hero`` to appear in the recent Soviet propaganda blitz has been Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Several remarkably positive articles about the wartime president appeared recently on the 40th anniversary of his death.

The journal ``U.S.A.`` described him as a ``politician of world caliber, a true patriot of America and a convinced champion of cooperation with the Soviet Union.`` It also suggested that if Roosevelt had lived longer, things might have been different after the war.

Roosevelt established diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow in 1933 (16 years after the revolution) and he maintained regular contacts throughout the war with Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

But on the day that the article praising Roosevelt appeared, the official Tass news agency said Reagan was ``unwilling to do anything that would really contribute`` to improving today`s international climate.

Though the Soviets clearly are viewing World War II through the prism of the current international situation, their propaganda line also may be linked to perceived slightings of the Soviet role in the West. Officials still may be smarting from what they took to be a major insult during last summer`s marking of the anniversary of the Western landings in Normandy.

That was exclusively a British, French, American and Canadian affair--as the June, 1944, landing had been--that received widespread publicity as the key to ending the European war.

Moscow reacted with fury, saying the West was trying to falsify history, and the tempo of its claims that the Red Army really won the war have not slowed since.

But Western diplomats think domestic more than international considerations are behind the lopsided reminiscing here.

The diplomats say new Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev may want to use the wartime memory tactic to its fullest to win acceptance for austerity measures needed to solve the many problems besetting the Soviet economy.